Exiles

Explore the Exiled Lands, Master Combat, and Build Your Empire

Conan Exiles stands as a unique open-world survival experience that immerses players in a vast, hostile landscape filled with danger and opportunity. Developed by Funcom, this sandbox game delivers an energetic and compelling adventure where exploration, combat, and resource management intertwine to create an unforgettable gaming experience. Whether you’re a seasoned survival game enthusiast or new to the genre, understanding the core mechanics and features of Conan Exiles will help you thrive in the Exiled Lands. This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about gameplay, world design, combat systems, and base building to maximize your enjoyment.

Understanding the Exiled Lands: World Design and Exploration

Stepping into the Exiled Lands for the first time is a moment you won’t forget. 😮 You’re dumped at the foot of a shattered aqueduct, the Broken Highway, with nothing but a loincloth and a burning thirst. Before you stretches a landscape of impossible scale and savage beauty—a world that feels less like a game level and more like a genuine, breathing prison you must learn to conquer. This is the heart of Exiled Lands exploration: a journey where every dune, forest, and canyon holds secrets, resources, and mortal danger. The Conan Exiles world map is your key to survival, but it’s a map you’ll fill with blood, sweat, and discovery.

Forget hand-holding. This land forces you to move, to seek, to risk. You’ll quickly learn that resource gathering in Conan Exiles isn’t a peaceful chore; it’s the primary driver of adventure and conflict. That iron you desperately need for better tools? It’s deep in the hills, guarded by cannibals. The coal for your forge? Up in the frozen peaks where the very air bites your skin. This scarcity is by design, transforming every expedition into a tense, calculated gamble. Your first real taste of this comes early. I remember desperately needing thick leather to upgrade my gear. The easy gazelles near my riverbank hut only gave thin hide. So, with my heart in my throat, I ventured into the dense woods to the north, armed with nothing but a stone spear. I found the massive elk I needed—right before a pack of hungry wolves found me. That desperate scramble back to my campfire, bleeding and over-encumbered with precious pelts, taught me more about how to explore efficiently in Conan Exiles than any guide could: always know your exit route.

The Seven Biomes: Diverse Environments and Unique Challenges

The genius of the Conan Exiles biomes lies in their progression. They aren’t just different backdrops; they are deliberate tiers of difficulty, resources, and narrative. Starting in the relatively forgiving southern riverlands, you are gently pushed north and west, each new zone demanding better gear, tougher companions, and smarter strategies. Learning these regions is the single most important part of mastering your Exiled Lands exploration.

To help you chart your course, here’s a breakdown of what awaits in each major region. 🗺️

The Conan Exiles desert region, where most Exiles begin, is a masterclass in introductory game design. It’s harsh enough to teach you about heat management and thirst, but its resources are plentiful for basic survival. As you move north into the forests and highlands, the environment itself changes its tune. The comforting heat of the desert is gone, replaced by chilling rains and, eventually, soul-crushing blizzards. I’ll never forget my first failed expedition into the snow. I’d crafted some simple fur armor, thinking it would be enough. I was wrong. Within minutes, the cold debuff crippled my stamina, and a lone frost giant finished the job. It taught me that in the Exiled Lands, preparation isn’t a suggestion—it’s the law. ⚠️

Resource Scarcity and Strategic Exploration

This brings us to the core loop of the game: need, risk, reward. Resource gathering in Conan Exiles is the engine of progress, and the map is deliberately designed to create tension. Essential mid-game materials like iron aren’t found in the safe starting areas. You are meant to venture into the foothills where the aggressive mountain tribes live. This isn’t an annoyance; it’s the game’s way of forcing you to engage with its combat, building, and thrall-taking systems.

Let’s paint a real scenario. You’ve just unlocked the Iron Toolsmithing feat. Excited, you run to your stockpile, only to find you have zero iron ore. Your trusty stone pickaxe won’t mine it. You check the Conan Exiles world map and see that the nearest iron deposits are in the rocky highlands to the north, a zone you’ve avoided due to the terrifying roars echoing from it. You have two choices: remain stagnant with stone tools, or brave the unknown. You craft some basic leather armor, a few healing wraps, and a handful of spears. The journey is tense. You skirt around a sabertooth, your heart pounding. You finally find a vein of iron jutting from a cliffside. Just as you start mining, you hear a guttural chant. A camp of Cimmerian berserkers has spotted you. Now you’re in a fight for your life, low on stamina from mining, trying to defend your precious, heavy iron. This moment of risk-versus-reward is the game. The thrill of making it back to your base, dumping a haul of iron on the ground, and knowing you’ve earned your next tier of power is unmatched.

Pro-Tip: Never go on a major resource run without a bedroll placed nearby. If you die deep in hostile territory, respawning at your main base miles away means losing your entire haul. A strategically placed bedroll acts as a forward spawn point to recover your belongings.

This scarcity also makes the world feel real and interconnected. You’ll find yourself planning multi-biome expeditions. “Okay, I’ll head to the highlands for iron and coal, cut through the forest for some extra wood and hide, and then loop back home.” This kind of Exiled Lands exploration turns you from a scavenger into a logistical master. And remember, you’re not the only one exploring. The landscape is dotted with the bases of other Exiles (in online play), often positioned right on top of key resource nodes. This creates natural points of conflict, alliance, or stealthy nighttime raids.

Discovering Hidden Locations and Points of Interest

Beyond the raw grind for materials, the true soul of the Conan Exiles world map is found in its secrets. This land is steeped in the history of fallen civilizations, and exploring every canyon and crevice is richly rewarded with lore, unique gear, and breathtaking vistas. The map isn’t just a tool for resource gathering in Conan Exiles; it’s a treasure map.

No location embodies this mysterious allure more than the Unnamed City location. Sitting in a massive crater at the geographic center of the map, it’s encircled by a terrifying Wall of Death—a shimmering, green energy barrier that inflicts rapid corruption. To enter, you must find one of the few breaches or use a special mask. Inside is a nightmarish labyrinth of ruins, home to some of the game’s toughest undead bosses and lucrative legendary weapon chests. The first time I braved the city, creeping through the oppressive green mist, hearing the clank of skeletal soldiers, I felt a genuine sense of dread and wonder. It’s a perfect example of the game’s horror atmosphere, where the environment itself is a constant enemy. Finding the Unnamed City location and daring to plunder its depths is a rite of passage.

But the wonders aren’t all cursed. Scattered across the Conan Exiles desert region are ancient ruins and sunken temples. In the north, you might stumble upon the Mounds of the Dead, a fortress guarded by a giant pet snake, offering fantastic loot and thralls. In the east, the arena where you can battle champions. In the swamp, the sinister, glowing arches of the Sunken City. The game rarely puts a giant quest marker on these places. You find them by seeing a curious structure on a distant cliff, by following a strange sound, or simply by getting hopelessly lost.

Here are a few actionable tips for your Exiled Lands exploration journey:

• Start with the Perimeter: When you’re new, try walking the edges of the map (while avoiding the instant-kill barrier, of course!). This gives you a safe(ish) lay of the land and reveals the stunning variety of the Conan Exiles biomes.
• Climb Everything: 💪 Your climbing pick is your best exploration tool. Many secrets are on plateaus or behind waterfalls only reachable by climbing. The verticality of the world is a key part of its design.
• Mark Everything: Use your map liberally. Found a rich iron node? Mark it. A hidden cave with a boss? Mark it. A safe spot to rest? Mark it. Your personal annotated map is your greatest asset for how to explore efficiently in Conan Exiles.
• Listen: The sound design is fantastic. The roar of a boss, the unique music that plays near dungeons, the chatter of NPC camps—all of these are audio cues that point you toward points of interest.
• Embrace the Journey, Not Just the Destination: Sometimes, put away your resource checklist. Just pick a direction and walk. Watch the sunset over the dunes, see the aurora in the frozen north, or get chased by a mammoth. These unscripted moments are what make the world feel alive.

Ultimately, understanding the Exiled Lands is about surrendering to its scale and its rules. You will feel dwarfed by its landscapes, humbled by its dangers, and exhilarated by its discoveries. Each biome, from the scorching Conan Exiles desert region to the silent, deadly snows, tells a story and presents a puzzle to solve. By mastering the Conan Exiles world map, respecting the drive for resource gathering in Conan Exiles, and seeking out wonders like the Unnamed City location, you stop being its prisoner and begin forging your own legend within its savage, beautiful expanse. 🏜️🔥❄️ Your empire awaits, but first, you must learn to walk its lands.

Conan Exiles delivers a compelling survival experience that challenges players to master exploration, combat, and base building in a hostile open world. The seven distinct biomes create diverse environments that demand strategic thinking and careful resource management, while the graphic combat system ensures every encounter carries weight and consequence. By understanding the world design, honing your combat skills, and establishing well-planned bases, you’ll be equipped to not just survive but thrive in the Exiled Lands. Whether you’re venturing into the Unnamed City, engaging in brutal combat encounters, or building your empire across multiple bases, the depth of gameplay mechanics ensures countless hours of engaging adventure. Start your journey today and discover why Conan Exiles remains a standout title in the survival game genre.